It’s As Bad As It Looks
Please take a close look at that photo—but not too close because Cute Redhead just might sense you’re gaze somewhere out there in the Universe and have a heart attack and die. And where she has some self-respect, I have…well…lol none. Because she would stand out in the middle of oncoming traffic before letting the world know that this is the state of one of the bathrooms.
And it is.
Now, before you dispatch the CDC to our house with orders to just set it on fire, let me explain a few things: First of all…we have three kids and are just recently out of the Fix What Breaks season. Prior to that, the idea of renovating anything had as much likelihood behind it as walking the Vegas strip at night with my wife and three children.
…wait.
(not important)
Anyway…so last week, you’ll recall, Cute Redhead asks me to make good on my promise to unclog the drain in the sink in her bathroom. And by ‘her bathroom’ I mean our bathroom but I never go in there because she spreads out enough hardware and toiletry to fix the International Space Station five times over. I am not TOUCHING that stuff.
So, I fix the clogged drain. Resulting in a drain that is not only NOT unclogged (still), it is now leaking in three places (not a lie). And, right on schedule, the other bathroom on that floor decided that a bathtub fixture that won’t shut off would be a knee-slapper. At nine o’ clock at night. With your daughter in the bathtub screaming like some character on that cable show called Intervention, and like we were trying to tie her down and get her on an airplane and off to some rehab.
Except she was screaming because the bath was about to overflow because it wouldn’t shut off.
I hate plumbing.
I’d already NOT fixed the sink in the other bathroom (and made it worse), now I have to figure out how to get the bathtub to stop running. And, yes, I tried everything so don’t start with me. That is, everything but crawl under the house and turn off the main water supply. Yeah, the tub can flood the valley for all I care, I am NOT crawling under the stupid house when nine o’ clock rolls around. Because when nine rolls around, I don’t hit the wall…the wall hits me.
And I lose my good humor, all my charm, and every ounce of my sparkling wit.
“We need to fix this.”
“I am not fixing anything. I am going to bed.”
“I’ll try and fix it then.”
“Knock yourself out.”
And that is truly the conversation me and Cute Redhead had. I lost five points in the Man Game and went to bed. Fifteen minutes later I hear this: “Okay, I used some pliers and I think I got it to drip only a little bit.”
The. Shame.
A few things about that photo:
It’s not hideous, dark, cultured mold you see between tiles.
At least I don’t think it is. What that actually is the wrong color tile grout or whatever you call that stuff.
*looks at photo again
Okay, I don’t think anybody is going to buy that one at all. But it’s true. If you look at the bottom row of tiles, you’ll see that they’re all cracked and had broken off. And I don’t remember why. I think I don’t remember why because I refuse to step one foot in that tub to be surrounded with any memories of Why Are These Tiles Cracked? It’s that bad.
And the rusty water stains?
Yeah not a fan.
And see that cold water fixture with no tile behind it?
Well, well, well-well-well. Who ever do you think is responsible for that snafu? Hm?
Wait, what’s that? Both the hot water and the cold water turn the wrong way to turn on and turn off? Seriously? They do?? Ha ha! What sort of LOSER puzzled that one out??
*raises hand [sad trombone]
So.
What started out as unclogging a stopped up sink (and it still is), has devolved into the renovation of:
The master bathroom
The kids’ bathroom
and
The laundry room.
Which happens to reside directly below both.
Not unlike the Maiden of the Mist resides directly below Niagara Falls.
Enough said.
(But I’ll be recording the renovations with The Rebel Force. That way the court will have all the evidence it needs explaining why I lost my mind.)
Example:
[High Powered Man and Cute Redhead go looking for Bathroom Remodeling Ideas, etc., etc. etc. The drive home. Silence.]
“Um. Is something wrong?”
“Well. No, not really.”
“Um lol…wanna try that again, honey?”
“Well…I wanted to have fun doing this. But now I feel like you’re trying to tell me how to redo my bathroom.”
[looks out driver's side window and mouths 'my bathroom'??]
lol here we go.
OMG!!!! Hilarious.
Our last foray into the underground world of plumbing (no pun intended) started with a new dishwasher, purchased and delivered on December 30th, late in the day. It was agreed that the install would occur the next morning.
We (and by we, I mean Mark, of course) started at 8:15 in the morning and by the time “we” finished it was 11:30 at NIGHT and “we” had replaced (out of complete neccesity) the pipes under the kitchen sink, the kitchen faucet, the waterline running to the fridge, the bathroom faucet, the shut off valve under the bathroom sink, the shut off valve under the HOUSE and the light fixutre ABOVE the bathroom sink (once the small electrical fire from the water-induced short was out).
That was a fun, fun New Year’s Eve. It’s been hard to top!
Ok let me share with you one of the secrets of plumbing…ready????…singing….you need to insert plumbing terms into songs and make light of it or else one of you may end up with a wrench where one does not belong.
I HATE plumbing….When we bought our first house we remodeled the bathroom by ourselves. Not a pretty sight…but non the less an adventure.. I was 8 months pregnant and using the Taco Bell bathroom to get ready for bed everynight. Yeah never a dull moment with the Brumley’s …Oh yeah did I tell you the Taco Bell was on Colfax???
The long and short of it is there is ALWAYS a story behind a plumbing job so enjoy the adventure and sing your hearts out!!!
Andrea…you are not encouraging me.
Nancy…I will never turn a wrench without singing. Ever again. And I will never look at a Taco Bell bathroom the same. Ever. Again.
LOL – Mark says that once you are done, you will have completed more projects than you had on your list.
“Projects you never even knew existed” was how he put it…
And then he laughed in a rather scary sort of way…
I am busting a gut here!! I am so going to tell Sue about Clary just going to bed and Nancy pregnant at the TB, just to make my spousal ineptitude seem less. Oh yeah, I am not beneath benefiting from others pain to make me look good, ok, less bad. My plumbing story? I have two, I have taken Sue’s sink apart more times than I care to count due to earrings, she is forever dropping them down her sink… girls. And BTW there is no way she would even TRY to fix a plumbing problem herself, she would just move over to my sink until that one too was clogged with earrings. But thank your lucky stars that you don’t live just 45 miles from Kohler Wisconsin. Ten years ago, while just thinking about housing, I consented to tour the 60K sq ft design center at Kohler. Big mistake. I am not joking one bit when I quote this “ I really don’t care what you do with any of the rest of this house, but I must have THAT sink”. I am slow but like being married, as such, our entire house is now designed around this stupid half-bath sink. When new folks come over, it is first on the tour, no joke. If only I were as valued.